Im planning on upgrading my Xp Pro to Win7 Ultimate. I Have my games installed to D:\Games.
What I want to know is when I install Win7 will it touch my D:\ drive (These are two physical drives), Will these games still work, or should I uninstall them first.
Programs need to be reinstalled and should be installed to the OS partition, as they write registry keys which intergrate them into the OS.
It is always best to back up everything externally when you install a new OS anyway. In fact I would wipe the HD to get the cleanest possible install: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
If you wipe the HD, you'll need to skip inserting an Upgrade version product key during install and do one of the workarounds given here after install: Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version
Here are some tips for a perfect install, based on hundreds done here: re-install windows 7
Yes I plan to back up everything to my 500g My book. Thanks for confirming what I already suspected. But uggh the re\download\install for Steam will kill me. Thanks for the great links btw!
Funny you mention Steam. I remembered a post awhile back where it was mentioned as one of the few games which can be carried over by copying its Program File into the new install.
I did a search and found the post by Zepher showing how to do it here: Will games carry over with out back up?
Hope it helps save you some trouble. Post back to let us know how it works.
Thanks for the tip Ill give it a shot by moving it back to the exact directory "D:\Games\Steam" ill post back if it works or not. But I guess the non-Steam games will have to be reinstalled.
Did a clean install with win7 tonight. I just left Steam installed to my D:\Games\Steam and as soon as my desktop was done loading for the first time I jumped over to my D: and launched steam. All games under the steam platform work perfectly with the exception of you game saves and settings which I did backup and will plug into the right folders soon. Worked flawlessly
Great News. Thanks for letting us know. Others will find this via Google.
Update:: Also none steam games and software will work in the same way as long as the software has a repair utility. it was painless
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